


A Light Through the Fog

by viv_is_spooky



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Canon-Typical fear entities, M/M, Slow Burn, Tags will be added as we go, VERY loose connections to the novel plot, gratuitous use of 1920s slang, just with no archives, remember how Nick Carraway almost had a roommate?, tma characters in the world of the great gatsby, well in this au that actually happens with JMart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29259408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viv_is_spooky/pseuds/viv_is_spooky
Summary: The Lukas mansion, permanently shrouded in fog, sprawls across the shore of East Egg. It casts its looming shadow onto the waters of Manhasset Bay, a haunting and formidable sight even on the sunniest days of the year.
Relationships: Gerard Keay & Evan Lukas, Gerard Keay/Evan Lukas, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A house of ice. A collision of polished bones on pavement. A nudge in the side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music - “Keep Sweeping the Cobwebs off the Moon” (Ted Lewis, Ruth Etting)

The Lukas mansion, permanently shrouded in fog, sprawls across the shore of East Egg. It casts its looming shadow onto the waters of Manhasset Bay, a haunting and formidable sight even on the sunniest days of the year. An abundant inheritance passes between generations, ensuring the continued prestige of the family and estate, and most heirs to the royalty of old money accept the sacrifices demanded of them in order to earn it.

The worth of gold above human connection is instilled from an early age, part of the curriculum of a twisted homeschool. The value of being alone is emphasized, the importance of interpersonal connection ignored.

Evan does not accept these lessons as easily as his parents expect him to. In fact, he refuses to accept them at all. Something within him reaches towards the outer world, towards the city in all its noise and grime and vibrancy.

He is sixteen when he runs away successfully for the first time, fleeing the prison of smokescreens and loneliness that has been house but never home to him.

Excitement finds him not even ten minutes after he’s reached the city, when a wide-eyed stranger runs straight into him. The book the stranger is carrying clatters to the pavement, spitting out small bones as it lands in the shadow of a building.

Evan barely manages to avoid toppling over. When the consecutive shocks of the collision and the contents of the fallen book wear off, he registers the fact that his face is only a breath away from the stranger’s. There are two hands twisted tightly in the front of his sweater, two gray eyes staring into his own from beneath a mop of unnaturally black hair.

“A-are you alright?” he asks tentatively.

“Swell,” the stranger deadpans. Evan can’t tell if he’s lying  _very_ badly or being sarcastic. He decides not to push the question.

“I’m Evan.” He gives a hesitant smile, reflexively wanting to reach out for a handshake but extremely aware of how close this person still is to him.

There is a beat, a silence. The person untwists his hands from Evan’s sweater and takes a step back, crossing his arms as he chews nervously at his lower lip. Then, a tentative mumble - “Gerry.”

“Gerry,” Evan repeats, trying for a reassuring smile. Reaching down into the shadows where Gerry’s book still lies, he gingerly picks it up and dusts it off. “So this book just...upchucks animal bones?”

“Yeah, ‘far as I can tell.”

“That’s the  _ berries_. Much better than the ones I’ve got at home; those just spew fog.” Evan reaches back down into the shadows and starts picking up bones, noting how  _ polished _ they all are- like pieces from someone’s private collection of macabre decorations.

There’s a lapse into thekind of uncomfortably long silence he ran to the city to get away from, and eventually he looks up to see Gerry peering at him with wide, incredulous eyes. One moment there’s a sparkle of hope, the next a shimmer of suspicion, all overlaying the sort of confusion one feels facing something they can’t comprehend.

Evan breaks the silence with the explanation, “I’ve been raised to keep everything spotless, besides...besidesthe fog.”

Gerry nods, letting out a small sigh, and kneels down to help with the cleanup effort. Barely audibly, he responds, “I’m not used to getting help, when I mess up. My mum, she’ll just...blow her top.”

_ Oh. _ Evan’s seen those kinds of people before, when his father’s had them over for business dinners. He isn’t sure what to say, as accustomed to the cold as he is most days. Sometimes, he wishes someone in his own home would blow their top and add warmth to the chill in the air.

Apparently, he’s the one who’s stayed silent too long this time, because Gerry picks the conversation back up with a nudge to Evan’s side and a lighthearted, “It gave you the heebie-jeebies at first, didn’t it?”

“Didn’t  _what_?” Evan turns warily to see the shadow of an impish smile on Gerry’s face.

“The  _ book_, you silly egg.”

“No! No, it didn’t.”

“ _ Applesauce _ .”

“It  _ didn’t_!”

(It takes half an hour more of similar debates and sidewalk cleaning before the area is free of skeletons.)


	2. A Shift to Present Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two newcomers to the East move into West Egg. Eyes pierce through fog, to the comfort of some and the unease of others. There is little shelter from the cold in a house chilled to the bone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music - "Harlem Rag" (Richard Zimmerman) and "All Alone" (Al Jolson)

Gradual as it was, the intensity of changing seasons always jarred Jon out of his comfortable routine. It registered in his sight, in the feeling of the air on his skin, in the way the world sprang up and broke down around him cyclically. Nonetheless, he appreciated the shift between spring and summer – the warming and lengthening of days, the increased hours of daylight that allowed him to read without straining his eyes as much as he did reading by candlelight in the winter.

He read what must have been miles and miles of words on his way to West Egg Village, to the house he would be calling home as he tried to establish himself in the bonds business. Each step of the journey from Midwest to East saw him carrying a heavy tome in hand as he preemptively studied the subject of his planned profession, absorbing information and annotating each page with a shorthand scrawl. After some time, he barely even noticed the tall, broadly-built man who traveled with him – Martin, his coworker and soon-to-be roommate. But Martin was there nonetheless, a constant and gentle presence Jon found alternatingly comforting and intrusive.

Jon had not, he reflected, gotten to know Martin very well before agreeing to this arrangement. They’d learned about a property in the East miraculously affordable between the two of them and more or less rushed headlong into it with a shared sense of curiosity about the world outside the Midwest, deciding to pool their finances and act on the opportunity to find answers to their questions.

He wondered, now, if he’d made the right choice. With a small, stifled sigh, he dug his nails into his palms to ground himself in the present. Back to the book, to the words, to sentences he could devour and make sense of in quick succession.

When they arrived at their destination, he was so entrenched in the words on the page he currently inhabited that he jumped a bit at the tap on his arm. Disgruntled and excruciatingly embarrassed, he looked up to shoot a glare at whoever had interrupted his progress only to see Martin smiling sheepishly.

Though he allowed himself to relax some amount, Jon made no attempt to shift his face into a neutral expression. “I’d appreciate a verbal warning first next time.”

“I said your name. Didn’t think you heard me.” Martin still smiled, but the look in his eyes had shifted. Jon didn’t have time to process the implications of the change before the moment passed.

* * *

“Jon, it’s getting dark out there,” Martin sighed, peering through the clouded front window of their house to where his roommate stood staring at something outside. Then, a little louder, “I know you want to catch a glimpse of our mysterious new neighbor, but you’ve been standing out there for an hour now just… _watching_. I _don’t_ think that’s healthy.”

If Jon heard Martin’s concerns, he didn’t respond. A flicker of warm light danced briefly through the pane of glass separating them – the illumination of a cigarette cutting through the growing darkness of dusk.

As much as he hated to admit it, Martin was fascinated by the mansion next door himself. It sprawled unapologetically across the area it occupied, broad and looming, overlayed in places by decorative clinging ivy. At night, it came alive with music and laughter.

It hardly seemed a practical place to live; nonetheless, he couldn’t deny the way its grandeur drew him in even as he regarded it warily – the way he _always_ regarded things which seemed too good to be true.

Still observing Jon’s silhouette through the window, Martin felt a shudder of apprehension course through him – the sort which had periodically wracked his body since the first time he laid eyes upon the property next to their comparatively humble home. There _had_ to be a catch to that place, some dark undercurrent beneath how happy the partygoers always sounded.

It wasn’t like the houses on the other side of the bay, the ones with pristine exteriors that created the aloof, distant atmosphere of old money. The atmosphere of East Egg was disgusting in a manner Martin was familiar with – selfish, stark, and serene in a way which bordered on sinister.

The property next door was none of those things. It was relatively new, grounded in a way which felt almost gritty, and its red clay-tiled roof sometimes glinted like rivulets of blood in the moonlight. In some lighting, a writhing pain seemed to twist the ivy on the walls. The house felt _wrong_ in a different way than Martin had seen before. Heavier in presence than anything around it, with an energy that suggested it might soon sink into the ground with whatever weight sat upon its brick shoulders.

Though he hadn’t mentioned it to Jon, Martin had seen who he supposed to be their elusive neighbor a couple nights back. The person had appeared in a high window momentarily, dark hair spilling over one shoulder, eyes sweeping across the waterway between East Egg and West Egg. Those _eyes_ …they’d been wide and haunted, set in a sharp-edged face. After gazing across the water, they’d shifted to look directly at him. It had been as if the person felt him watching and somehow knew _exactly_ where to look.

The eye contact had barely lasted a second, but it had been thoroughly burned into Martin’s memory. A second shudder ran up his spine at the recollection of how childlike curiosity and a guarded, weary fear had seemed to ripple through those eyes in equal measures before the person turned away.

* * *

Evan was certain he was seeing things in the fog. He had to be; there was _no_ way the observant gray eyes etched in his memories could be watching from somewhere across the water. It had been _years_ since he’d seen those eyes, years since he’d disappeared unceremoniously from Gerry’s life, years since he’d felt understood by another human being. He had run away a couple more times after the weeks they’d spent together, searching up and down the streets of New York City until his father apprehended him with cold eyes and icy hands.

The chill in Evan’s soul had deepened with each failure to find his friend’s gentle smile and welcoming arms, and by the time he reached his twenties he had started to feel the fading of his sense of self into the insidious solitude which seemed inherent to the Lukas name.

He still shivered, however, at the idea of becoming an heir to the oppressive silence of his family’s house.

He still scrunched his eyes shut when the hopeless despair of isolation speared him like an icicle through the heart, remembering the warmth of Gerry’s hand in his.

Some days, memory wasn’t enough to hold back the flood of numbness, and on those days Evan would resort to reaching out to Ariadne – the youngest of his sisters, nineteen on the cusp of her twenties. Sometimes, she ignored him, imperious and proper in the way their parents had brought them up to be. Other times, she’d reach back, sitting beside him for support while keeping an alert eye out for their more malicious family members. On very rare occasions, she’d crumple and cry into his shoulder like a child. They never spoke, out of fear that the sound of their voices would attract too much attention in the barren house.

In his dreams, Evan escaped the house with Ariadne, they found Gerry, and the three of them ran to a nameless place unmarred by dreary fog.


End file.
